U.S. Airline Repair Station Oversight ‘Inadequate’: Audit

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Oversight of aircraft repair stations
by U.S. aviation regulators is marred by inspectors who haven’t
been trained and a system that can’t identify the areas of
highest risk, according to a government audit.

Independent repair shops, used increasingly by airlines
trying to cut costs, couldn’t account for tools, document the
training of their mechanics and prove work had been done
properly, the report by the Transportation Department’s
inspector general found today.

The report is the latest by government auditors to raise
questions about how the Federal Aviation Administration oversees
repair shops in the U.S. and other nations. Inspector General
Calvin Scovel and his predecessor raised similar issues in
reports in 2003 and 2008.

“FAA’s oversight of foreign and domestic repair stations
lacks the rigor needed to identify deficiencies and verify that
they have been addressed,” the watchdog said in the report.

The FAA agreed with nine recommendations issued by the
Office of the Inspector General and said it was making
improvements.

“The FAA’s effective, risk-based oversight system for
repair stations and the commercial airline industry’s
investments in safety have produced an outstanding U.S. safety
record,” the agency said in a statement.

The FAA is developing a new system to oversee repair
facilities, it said. In the meantime, the agency is improving
inspector training and guidance, according to the statement.

Overhauls, Tear-Downs

The IG report, written by Jeffrey Guzzetti, assistant
inspector general for aviation, said the FAA wasn’t going far
enough and urged the agency to make additional changes.

The FAA oversees almost 4,800 aircraft-repair stations used
by U.S. carriers. Those shops perform everything from engine
overhauls to complete tear-downs of airplanes.

Airline spending on repairs outside their own maintenance
facilities has grown almost threefold, to $4.2 billion in 2011
from $1.5 billion in 1996, according to the report.

While the FAA’s goal has been to focus its safety efforts
on the areas of highest risk, the repair station oversight falls
short, the report found.

Most of the criteria inspectors review at domestic repair
shops aren’t based on risk, according to the report. None of the
risk-based criteria are used by the agency in its checks on
overseas facilities.

Poor Training

Of 36 inspectors interviewed by the IG, 33 said they didn’t
know how to use the agency’s risk-assessment tools because of
poor training.

“Over the longer term, FAA is also working to improve the
capabilities and performance of the risk-based analytical tools
available to inspectors,” H. Clayton Foushee, the director of
the agency’s Office of Audit and Evaluation, said in a response
included in the IG report.

The audit found evidence of “systemic deficiencies” at
repair shops that weren’t being detected by the FAA.

Out of 119 randomly selected work orders, the IG found 92
errors. The errors included issues with mechanic training, tools
and equipment, and how the maintenance was performed.

At one unidentified facility that repairs engines,
mechanics didn’t receive a course in how the airline required
work to be performed. Another shop that serviced safety
equipment such as life rafts couldn’t locate some tools and
hadn’t calibrated others.

“FAA does not have an effective system for accurate and
timely risk assessment of foreign and domestic repair stations
because of critical weaknesses in its repair station oversight
process,” the IG said in the report.

The report comes at a time of record airline safety. There
hasn’t been a passenger fatality on a U.S. carrier in more than
four years.